The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War eBook

The Indians of the First Regiment showed signs of
serious demoralization and became unmanageable, while
a large number of the Second deserted.[382] It was
thought that deprivation in the midst of plenty, the
lack of good water and of the restraining influence
of white troops had had much to do with the upheaval,
although there had been much less plundering since
they left than when they were present. With much
of truth back of possible hatred and malice, the special
agents reported that such protection as the white men
had recently given Indian Territory “would ruin
any country on earth."[383]

With the hope that the morale of the men would be
restored were they to be more widely distributed and
their physical conditions improved, Colonel Furnas
concluded to break camp on the Verdigris and return
to the Grand. He accordingly marched the Third
Indian to Pryor Creek[384] but had scarcely done so
when orders came from Salomon, under cover of his
usurped authority as commander of the Indian Expedition,
for him to cross the Grand and advance northeastward
to Horse Creek and vicinity, there to pitch his tents.
The new camp was christened Camp Wattles. It
extended from Horse to Wolf Creek and constituted a
point from which the component parts of the Indian
Brigade did

[Footnote 384: Named in honor of Nathaniel Pryor
of the Lewis and Clark expedition and of general frontier
fame, and, therefore, incorrectly called Prior Creek
in Furnas’s report.]

extensive scouting for another brief period.
In reality, Furnas was endeavoring to hold the whole
of the Indian country north of the Arkansas and south
of the border.[385]

Meanwhile, Salomon had established himself in the
neighborhood of Hudson’s Crossing, at what he
called, Camp Quapaw. The camp was on Quapaw land.
His idea was, and he so communicated to Blunt, that
he had selected “the most commanding point in
this (the trans-Missouri) country not only from a
military view as a key to the valleys of Spring River,
Shoal Creek, Neosho, and Grand River, but also as the
only point in this country now where an army could
be sustained with a limited supply of forage and subsistence,
offering ample grazing[386] and good water."[387]
No regular investigation into his conduct touching
the retrograde movement, such as justice to Weer would
seem to have demanded, was made.[388] He submitted
the facts to Blunt and Blunt, at first alarmed[389]
lest a complete abandonment of Indian Territory would
result, acquiesced[390] when, he found that the Indian
regiments were holding their own there.[391] Salomon,
indeed, so far strengthened Furnas’s hand as
to supply him with ten days rations and a section
of Allen’s battery.

[Footnote 385: For accounts of the movements
of the Indian Expedition after the occurrence of Salomon’s
retrograde movement, see the Daily Conservative,
August 16, 21, 26, 1862.]